dead on the surface but screaming underneath
by gsdlover1623
Summary: His skin, however much he doesn't want it to, always wins. This is one of those moments that Superboy wishes it would lose. *warning: contains suicide attempt*


**AN: HeLP I'M SCREAMING. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME! UGH CONNER, JUST GO...GO AWAY!**

**Disclaimer: Title is based on the song _Amsterdam_ by Coldplay. I don't own Young Justice or Conner or anyone like that. Nope, just this little old headcanon that gives me too many feels to be healthy.**

**WARNING: MENTIONS OF SELF-HARM AND SUICIDE. I HAVE NEVER ATTEMPTED EITHER MYSELF AND I RECOMMEND THAT YOU DON'T, TOO**

* * *

He supposes it tickles, the faint-as-a-butterfly's-wings kind of feeling he gets when something particularly sharp is pitted against his skin. Unfortunately, his skin, however much he doesn't want it to, always wins. His skin is winning now, and as he watches the glass becomes blunter and blunter, pieces of sand raining down onto the concrete beneath him.

Superboy hates it.

Hates how he can hear each plink when a grain hits a ground; or how the purple of his vein, twisting _right there_ underneath his skin can't be reached no matter how hard he tries; or how he can feel his lungs moving faster and his heart pumping harder.

He shouldn't be scared. He _wants _this. But, there it is, the telltale sound of his arteries accepting blood more often than if he was calm, and the way his chest is rising and falling with more vehemence than usual. His shirt is moving with his chest, the fabric rubbing against his skin, even though he can't feel it. He _wants_ to feel it because then he will definitely be able to feel the glass against his wrist, sawing back and forth and back and forth and doing _nothing_.

Lips apart, it takes a moment to realize he's panting, air sweeping over his tongue and down his throat, and he hates himself for it. He is weak to feel the need to do that. He is designed to be perfectly healthy in every way and he hates that too. He hates the scientists that created him; and he hates the fog that had been forced upon his mind when he had first opened his eyes; and he hates the absolute feeling of aloneness at night, when M'gann's mutters about '_not enough salt and too much pepper'_ don't follow him around everywhere; and he **_hates_ **the way the mirror in his room calls him, _beckons_ him, every time he walks through the door.

He knows he's not Superman. He _isn't_. But that quaint image of eyes the color of the sky and black hair with _just_ the right amount of curl in it and a jawline that Wally says _'most guys would_ die _for_' whispers something different. Lies claw at his ears and secrets slither along inside his head, shouting into the smallest crevice and the most hidden niche, and he hates that too because **_he's not __Superman_.**

Superman is Kryptonian, born on a dying planet and raised on Earth, and he is charming and he is loved and he is _super_. Superboy isn't any of that. Superboy is a clone, born in a test tube and raised by the images that fellow science experiments implanted in his mind, and he is awkward and he is alone and he is _angry_. He's not Superman. He'll never be Superman.

He is a mistake and a freak of nature. Never belonging, no matter how much the others say they are _'a Team, something to be proud of.' _Superboy isn't proud of anything. He isn't proud of how he can't fly or how he can't use X-Ray vision or how he is always so_ **angry**_.

Performing the sawing with even more vigor, his face forms an expression akin to a snarl and the tips of his fingers start to brush against the inside of his wrist as the glass shrinks. He ignores the growing pile of sand on the ground that pools around his outstretched leg.

The motion eventually becomes automatic, a simple movement for a monumental decision, and Superboy chokes a little when he feels the butterfly's wings feeling vanish and become replaced by steely fingertips on a steely wrist. He finally looks down and does something akin to M'gann's 'burnt cookie' gasp, the taste of stale air coating his tongue, because there's no more glass.

Only tiny shards that are too small for Superboy to pick up remain, but he tries anyway. They sparkle as his fingers that are so big and clumsy scrape at the ground, at his own skin, trying to find just _one_ fragment big enough for him to use. None of them are of any use though.

Eventually his franticness turns into despair and his despair turns into exhaustion, and his head falls to rest on the wall with a _clunk_. He sits like that, absorbing the coolness of the steel through his steel skin, and staring off into nothing with dead, blue eyes. He hears M'gann through the wall, shifting in her bed, mumbling something that vaguely sounds like a Martian cry for mercy, but Superboy can't bring himself to focus enough to care.

A few hours - or maybe it was seconds - sleep invades his mind, its silent wings sweeping along every crevice and crack that has been stuffed full of insecurities. Demons reach out for him, blood red 'S's gleaming on their chests, and their talons draw blood from his veins, crimson and hot and sticky.

Superboy is sure that somewhere in the recesses of his mind he is screaming, commanding to be released, to be placed back into the waking world, but the rest of him doesn't fight it, only allows the abuse to continue.

* * *

He hasn't moved a muscle when M'gann wakes him up the next morning, eyes much too wide and innocent.

She doesn't ask about the glass, only helps him sweep it up in silence. He can feel her eyes glued to his back the entire time.

Black Canary asks him if he wants a new mirror to replace the one he "bumped into". M'gann is the one to politely tell her that _no, he will be fine without one, __thanks anyway._

Superboy, unsure of how to thank her, just stands still and glares at the floor.

_(He ends up thanking her in kisses later, when he no longer is so lost in that dark sea of anger and loneliness)_

_(She doesn't mind the lateness)_

* * *

And five years from then, when he just might not have M'gann anymore but he _just might_ have Superman as a family member, he **_just might_** be with some random kid on the Team, and yeah, the kid _is _dressed as a bright cobalt bug, and maybe, just maybe, Conner might flash back for a small second and thank every god in existence that his skin always seems to win.

_Maybe..._

* * *

**AN: I. Hate. Headcanons. They eat at you until you just _have _to write it down and then poof, you have a short little oneshot on your hands. Like, seriously?**

**Anyway, my awful little headcanon is that because we know that 1) Conner used to have no mirrors in his room and 2) he was once suicidal-ish, I figured 'what if he used the pieces of a mirror that was in his room and he punched to try and commit suicide?' Sometimes I really hate those little random headcanons.**

**Yeah, the ending is crappy, but I'm a little out of practice thanks to band. (For those of you waiting for WitW, two super long chapters are completed. They're just being ****betaed. So sorry for the wait.)**

**-gsdlover**


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